Ancient Grain Genomics to simplify gene discovery and deployment in wheat

IWGSC webinar 12/11/2025 Presenter: Vijay K Tiwary, University of Maryland, USA Outline: Wheat is one of the most important crops worldwide and a significant source of human calories. The human population is expected to be more than 9 billion by the year 2050. Due to a complex evolutionary history, domestication bottleneck and selective breeding have significantly reduced wheat genetic base. To keep pace with the growing demand in production and challenges arising from changing climatic conditions and several diseases and pests, wheat cultivars need continuous deployment of novel genes and alleles for their improvement. Using wheat’s wild and ancestral diploid species and advances in NGS technologies, we have developed an efficient and integrated genomics-assisted pipeline to develop and deliver resilient cultivars for sustainable and profitable agriculture. We have used this pipeline to positionally clone genes related to powdery mildew and leaf rust resistance. I will present an update on our gene discovery pipeline and genomics-assisted improvement of wheat cultivars. Slides of the presentations are available on this page: https://www.wheatgenome.org/activitie...